Birthday-Death-Bed
by It's an Existential Crisis
Summary: In which the only life that really mattered is saved, and Nux gets his second shot for a place in Valhalla. The odds are grim, but a mother's purpose burns far greater than any warrior. Without Immortan Joe, it's time to rebuild and the next generation is prized more than ever. A/N I've never seen any of the other movies but I plan to (NuxCapable)(MaxFuriosaSplendid)


**CH. 1**

I like to think it was her mothering instincts. It really was just luck. But somethin in me wants to believe that her son's scared, hungry cry brought her back from the dead. The Valkyries musta seen the boy and realized he needs his mum, and brought her back. They weren't doing her no favors putting her back in that body, with no strength, bleeding out into the hot salt... But I guess that's another reason they rejected me. I don't believe I have a place in Valhalla. When I heard them calling me, they were telling me, "not yet, not yet..." even though I wanted it so badly, they whispered and now I guess I still have a purpose. I couldn't feel the pain of my sickness, nor the fatigue of the days efforts, nor hunger or thirst. I was for this moment their savior.

I'd never seen a baby before. Immortan probably thought he was dead -and for a brief second I gloried in the bounty of returning his live son- old Gods are hard to kill. But then I heard her breath. A raspy, pained, razor sharp breath that cut through the stagnation, only barely heard over the infant's despair.

He was so small. His skin so smooth under the bloody mess. My attention was scattered between the two fragile, dying creatures before I scooped the boy off the burning sand, his back was scorched and his scream must've been from the pain. His little face, his little hands, trembling in an innocent fist. I'd never seen such purity. His weight in my arms, his warmth on my chest- this is what they were talking about. We are to blame. I should have felt ashamed, but I felt something else. Time seemed to stop around his strained red face, and I wanted nothing more than to ease his pain. I had to do something. There was no way this child should be alive, no way it could have survived out here for this long, like this. And Splendid- they are alive for a reason.

My trembling knees forced me over to her, child in one arm. She was breathing, but that alone wouldn't keep her alive. If I moved her she'd die. If I didn't move her she'd die. So I ripped off the bottom of her dress, laid the infant down on it, struggled to get her on her side and prayed that all women, not just the ones in Immortan's collection, produced mother's milk. And she did. The little one seemed to know exactly what to do and was calm suckling on her breast. I stood over them, blocking them from the sun, watching as her stomach bled all over the both of them. She was going to die and there was nothing I could do. But that can't be why I'm still here. I will die the warrior that saved these two. With that thought I was satisfied. And with Splendid on my back, her son in the crook of my arm, and Capable on my mind, I carried them West... I don't know why I went West, we'd all die before we got far, but I wasn't too bright to begin with, and out of sorts after a full two days of near death experiences.

The boy screamed and screamed. There was no shade and if we stopped long enough for him to drink his fill of Splendid's milk, she'd die. I was blind to the hopelessness and trekked on. And on. Until I couldn't anymore and she slid off my back and I crumbled. We were not a mile from where we started. Splendid was getting cold. I had to save them- this was the deed demanded of me by the Gods of Valhalla. And so I let the boy nurse, and I stitched her stomach with the thick seam of my trousers and a pin, washing the blood away with a rag soaked in my sweat, and bound it with a dry one. I'd never had to do any of this before, but I'd been fixed up enough times by the docs back home. If I could just keep them alive until we reached the Citadel. It would take days. At the rate I was walking, weeks. They'd never make it that long. The idea that this was punishment occurred to me.

Splendid would make a good mum. She's doing everything right just by staying alive for him right now. For little Thomas. That was the only word I learned to read 'cause my mum actually had me convinced at one point that that was my father's name. But it was a good name. And that would be his name until she woke up. "Little Thomas. I'll be back." He paid no mind to me, happily clinging to his mother's chest. The sun was going down and the heat no longer bothered him. I wouldn't let him lose his mum.

I thought of my mother. An old beggar who sold me to Immortan Joe, for what I can't remember. But I remember sitting on the edge of the salt sea, as she pointed to dots on the horizon. 'When your father returns,' she told me, 'We'll go away from here and live on cactus water.'

Cactus water. It was a long shot. But it was better than sitting here watching them die. If they die, It may as well be waiting for me to come back.

'When your father returns, we'll go to the ocean.'

Feh. She was a fucking ass-licker.

I don't know what made me think I'd find a cactus. Because anyway, that's definitely not what I found. It began with red hair. Soft, fluffly, light, the reminiscence of oranges and dragon fruit and other things I never tasted. And then it was the orange flag of a merchant's caravan.


End file.
